Johann Malfatti

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Johann Malfatti

Johann Baptist Malfatti, Edler von Monteregio , baptized as Giovanni Domenico Antonio Malfatti (born June 12, 1775 in Lucca , Italy ; † September 12, 1859 in Hietzing near Vienna , Austria ) was an Italian - Austrian physician .

Life

The merchant's son Johann Malfatti studied medicine with Luigi Galvani in Bologna and in Pavia with Johann Peter Frank , whom he followed to Vienna in 1795 to take up a position as a secondary doctor in the Vienna General Hospital. He received his doctorate in 1797, founded the Society of Doctors in Vienna in 1802 and set up his own practice in 1804. In 1809 he published the natural philosophical work Draft of a Pathogeny from the Evolution and Revolution of Life .

Malfatti House, the doctor's house in Weinhaus

During the Congress of Vienna he enjoyed an excellent reputation and became the personal physician of Archduke Charles and Archduchess Maria Beatrice of Modena-Este . On December 31, 1821, Malfatti married the Polish Countess Helena Ostrowska (1794–1826) in Vienna. In 1822 the Archduchess became the godmother of his first daughter and granted him a pension for life. In 1830 he also looked after the Duke of Reichstadt . His house on the Küniglberg in Hietzing inspired Malfatti to his nobility title "Noble of Monteregio", which he received on April 10, 1837 for his services to science. In 1858 he was accepted into the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina . His academic nickname was Jordanus Brunus .

Ludwig van Beethoven had known Malfatti since 1809 and consulted him several times during the following years. Malfatti advised Beethoven to take a cure in Teplitz in 1811 . Beethoven composed the cantata WoO 103 Un lieto brindisi for his doctor's name-day celebration on June 24, 1814 in his house in the Weinhaus suburb . In April 1817, Beethoven's mistrust led to a rupture between the two and Beethoven did not use Malfatti's services again until ten years later during his last illness, although his hopes for a cure were not fulfilled.

Later Malfatti also belonged to Frédéric Chopin's circle of friends , who mentioned him several times in his letters, especially when he lived in Vienna in 1830/31. At the beginning of May 1831 Chopin and Johann Nepomuk Hummel visited the doctor on his country estate. On May 14, 1831, Chopin wrote to the family:

“Malfatti went to the country with his children. You will not believe how beautiful the place is where he lives; a week ago today I was with him with Hummel. He took us around his country estate, showed us its beauties, and when we had climbed to the highest peak of the mountain, we didn't want to go down at all. The court honors him with a visit every year, and his neighbor is the Duchess of Anhalt , who certainly envies him for the garden. From one side you can see Vienna at your feet, in such a way that it seems to be completely connected to Schönbrunn , from the other side there are high mountains, and the villages and monasteries scattered on them leave you with the splendor and the noisy hustle and bustle of the Forget the city. "

Together with his colleague Franz Wirer von Rettenbach, Malfatti made great contributions to the discovery of Austrian spas such as Bad Ischl and Bad Vöslau . Malfatti was in personal contact with the philosophers Franz von Baader and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling as well as the philosophizing naturalist Lorenz Oken and the physician and medical philosopher Ignaz Paul Vitalis Troxler .

Tomb at Hietzingen cemetery

He was buried in an honorary grave in the Hietzinger Friedhof (group 3, number 5). In Vienna- Hietzing (13th district) the Malfattisteig is named after him.

Fonts

  • Draft of a pathogeny from the evolution and revolution of life . Vienna 1809.
  • Studies on anarchy and hierarchy of knowledge with special relation to medicine . Leipzig 1845, Paris 1849.
  • Malfatti's new attempts at healing: 1. Successful extermination of the gray catfish by a new external healing method; 2. Frequent emergence of the black catfish from the Raphagra. Knowledge and treatment of these, as well as other (just as often misunderstood) diseases of the Schedel sutures . Vienna 1847

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ JDF Neigebaur : History of the Imperial Leopoldino-Carolinian German Academy of Natural Scientists during the second century of its existence. Friedrich Frommann, Jena 1860, p. 287 digitized
  2. ↑ Fryderyk Chopin, Letters , ed. by Krystyna Kobylańska , Berlin: Henschelverlag 1983, p. 118.
  3. ^ Johann Malfatti in the search for the deceased at friedhoefewien.at
personal data
SURNAME Malfatti, Johann
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Malfatti, Giovanni Domenico Antonio (baptismal name); Malfatti, Johann Baptist (full name); Noble of Monteregio (title of nobility)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian-Austrian medic
DATE OF BIRTH June 12, 1775
PLACE OF BIRTH Lucca
DATE OF DEATH September 12, 1859
Place of death Hietzing (district of Vienna)